WITH THE AMERICANS IN ENGLAND.

Taihape Daily Times, 7 December 1917, Page 6

WITH THE AMERICANS IN ENGLAND.

WHAT THEY THINK OF THE KING. A MODEST ANDQUIET CROWD. "It isn't real!" said the captain. "It-can't be real! Those dinky little villages where every pebble is polished up every morning, are 3 ust llke & scene out of a Belasco play. And your babies! I've never seen such pink-and-white-cheeked children before, I suppose I really am in England, but sometimes I feel inclined to pinch myself and make sure that I am not dreaming.'' We were standing on the borders of a heath outside a Surrey village. The Stars and Stripes was flying from a new flagstaff not far off. Hundreds of tents proclaimed the presence of soldiers. One needed only to look at the men and to mark their uniforms—the plain khaki and the slouch hats, and the khaki distinguishing letters — to tell that they were from the United Stated.

They landed on the previous afternoon. They had reached here during the night. In the morning they had had a route march of 3i hours, In the afternoon they had been at drill for three hours They marched past with the poise and air of veterans An old corporal of the Lancashires gave his verdict in a sentence: "These aifc't no bloomin' rookies," said he, And he was right. For they were United States Regulars, professional soldiers.

What do they think of us? What are they here for? I discussed this with many of them. Some people told me before I arrived that the "Yanks" (incidentally very few of them are "Yanks") would spoil themselves by their "Swarking" and big talk. I found them on the contrary, a modest and quiet crowd. Man after man took me on one side to emphasise one thing. 1 "We have no delusion," they said, "about ourselves. If you find any of our boys shouting that he has come here to finish up your job for you, knock him out. Most of us understand that we are here to help in a very big business. We realise something of what England and France have done. We know how big the task is, and how hard you have worked at it. We want to help you. We are going to learn from you, because you have had experience of this game and we have not. We are studying what you have done, and what you have discovered, and we hope that you will find us good fighting stuff. We think you will, because our boys' hearts are really in this business." What impressed them most? The King! The visit of the King to their camp is still talked over and discussed in all its aspects. "We thought before the King came," they told me, "that there would be a lot of fuss. Some of our boys expected to find him strutting about with a golden crown, on his head, and most of us thought that there would be a good deal of ceremony. We expected him to be surrounded by a big staff, and hedged in and very much on dignity. But what happened was quite different. He came along just like you or me, There wasn't any crowd, and there wasn't any Court around him. He didn't strut, but just behaved like a straight common sense kind of man. He was -wearing no frills, and was right down to his job. Ho knew all about us. He knew many of our names. He went into the Y.M.C.A. tent, and stayed there a long time. He talked with the boys who. were around just like anyone else might have done. He made everyone feel at home, and I can tell you he made us all feel good. He is "some" King!" What do most of these 'Americans soldiers think of us? Their great disappointment is the absence of skyscrapers, and their great difficulty is the British money. "Why," said one Westerner, "even a fourth-rate Texas city has a tenstorey sky-scraper. Where are yours? All the buildings in your big cities look as though they wore cut clean off close to the ground. What's the mattre with the sky, anyway? Well, your money ! Well, most of us just pull out a handful and hand it over to the girls w e are buying from, and say, 'You take what is right.' We had lectures aboard ship on your money coming across, but the florin and half crown, and then that great lob you call a crown, are too stiff a proposition fr us. Our money seems pretty stiff for you. The railToad girl on tho way down here told me 25 cents was worth 9£d. Yet when I gave her a dollar to pay for a 3s dinner basket, she gave me a shilling change.'' Efficiency! That is the impression the American soldiers leave on one. This efficiencly extends in many directions. For example, in the battalion I lave been with not a single man is on the sick list. It has mastered the problem of health. Its officers shows its soldiers the main causes of disease, and "explain to them how disease can be avoided. Every man has had impressed upon him that preventive Illness !

is a military crime, and that the concealment of illness when it can be cured is impermissible. The men are treated as men, and ont as children, and the result stands revealed in their high standard of accomplisment. —F. A. McKenzie, in the Daily Chronicle.